since not everyone can take a big city shopping break, especially this year, i thought i would do a thread on the holiday shop windows around midtown manhattan. Enjoy!

 

Bloomingdales 3rd ave face (1931)

 

The midblock buildings (founded in 1860, bloomies moved uptown here in 1886)

 

The Lexington ave side (1931)

 

This year the windows have an old fashioned (and un-pc!) theme

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloomberg building court

 

 

 

 

 

FAO Schwarz toystore

 

 

Apple store & the plaza

 

 

 

bergdorf goodman windows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flashy Louie V

 

 

 

Tiffany’s

 

The Donald

 

 

 

The peninsula hotel

 

The st regis hotel

 

 

chestnut man

 

Cartier

 

Cartier & Versace

 

 

Juicy couture

 

 

Saks

 

Their windows feature a children's book theme this year

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advert for rockefeller center’s top of the rock in the ge building

 

The Swarovski star – goes on top of the rock center tree

 

 

Radio city music hall ads

 

 

 

 

Corporate cheer  :roll:

 

 

 

 

Sigh…makes ya soo proud to be an american  :|

 

M&M’s + didja know there is a music instrument row in times square? how long can it last?

   

 

Tkts booth steps

 

 

Father duffy does not look too happy with his view  :laugh:

   

 

New, ridiculous…..and came in handy at that moment!

http://www.charmin.com/en_us/pages/restrooms/index.shtml

^ wait, shouldn't they have opened they have opened this in flushing, queens?  :laugh:

 

All day long….to the same charmin song….over & over….they should double her pay!

 

Toys r us

 

 

New BOA building from 42nd st & from Bryant park

 

 

Bryant park skating

 

 

They still have the water on!?  :wtf:

 

Last up is macy’s

 

 

Hmm, the believemeter sure has dropped off since the thanksgiving parade!  :-o

 

 

 

Macy’s windows

 

 

It’s real!  :angel:

 

 

 

*** ho! ho! ho!  that’s what’s up for manhattan holiday shopping season 2008! ***

 

Is it just my computer or do a lot of these not show up? Incredible shots -from the ones I see.

 

I'm going to manhattan around the 18th! I'll be doing a little shopping. Looks like the buildings go all out for the holidays. I love that Steve Madden store for some reason.

the last ones may not show up if you use firefox --- in that case you have to install & use the ie extension.

Yeah i just switched to firefox actually. That must be it. Thanks.

God I hate the LV building.  It was so much better when we owned it!

 

No Barney's shots??  :?  Classist!  :roll:

 

Cartier really needs to reinvent that "bow".

 

The Bloomberg Bldg. is actually named "beacon court" and is residential from the 31 floor up.

 

I remember when my staff and I were temporarily relocated and we looked out onto 1251 Six ave.  Those big buildings have the WORST holiday decorations.

no barneys? my god man, isn't a thread of any department store windows gay enough for you?!?!  :laugh:

He's just a hater  :-D. It's a hater's job to hate.

no barneys? my god man, isn't a thread of any department store windows gay enough for you?!?!  :laugh:

Well if you're going to do "gay" then do it right man!  You walked right past Barney's

He's just a hater  :-D. It's a hater's job to hate.

Hush!

 

 

 

 

hey you're in barneys all the time lazybones -- so take your camera & feel free to add your window photos to the thread!

Nice shots!

Great Pictures!  One day, I hope to see the windows in person rather than living vicariously through pictures posted on Urbanohio.com.

Great idea for a thread.  New York during the holidays is the American winter wonderland thanks to the many holiday films that have taken place there.  Wonderful place during this time of year.

 

Hush!

 

 

 

Woooo tree lighting on Wednesday.

There sure are a lot of white folk in them there window displays.

(except for the one Charmin display)

There sure are a lot of white folk in them there window displays.

(except for the one Charmin display)

 

OK.  But bloomingdales Create Team isn't Bergdorf, Barney's or Higbee's!

a review of these shopwindows and others in the village voice:

 

 

Holiday Storefronts: A Window Shopper's Guide

The season's big-store displays include the artful and artless, plus Mike the Snowflake

 

By Lynn Yaeger

Tuesday, December 2nd 2008 at 1:44pm

 

Peace, love, and underselling: A window at, like, Barneys, man

 

Did you know that a billion or so years ago, snow clumped together in a most disgusting manner, and you couldn't tell the boy flakes from the girl flakes?

 

Such is the stunning allegation made by Saks Fifth Avenue, where this year's holiday windows, lavishly funded by the Swarovski Crystal company, tell the uplifting if entirely unsurprising tale of Mike the Little Snowflake That Could—differentiate himself, that is, from the other flakes, mostly by means of a spectacular aureole created from Swarovski sparklers that makes him look like a target of Prop. 8 advocates.

 

Mike floats, while the other crystals, who appear to hail from the Playskool School of Product Design, sink like lumps, and the hackneyed moral of the tale—"It's simple. Be yourself!"—is so militantly ecumenical that even the Orthodox Jewish family waiting on line to view these shenanigans is able to enjoy the story. In the last tableau, the Chrysler Building spins in ecstasy and snowy blobs wave placards reading "Snowflake City Loves Mike." (The moronic crystals may be giddy, but inside Saks, where everything is 70 percent off and they're selling Juicy Couture handbags out of cardboard boxes on the main floor, things are not so sunny.)

 

Up the avenue at Bergdorf Goodman, the windows seem to have suffered an assault from Edward Cullen's Twilight relatives. Everything here is languid and bloodless, if achingly elegant: Surreal clocks hang from a tree in silent homage to Dalí; a mannequin with a bird's head models an evening fur; an artist in mink jabot and sequined knickers paints a pallid canvas amid rabbits wearing hats. A pair of nymphs dressed in Rodarte and Marchesa teeter over a pond filled with coral and sepulchral fish—have they just checked their sinking portfolios and are contemplating jumping? Around the corner on 58th Street, authentic vintage mannequins include one darling who bears a striking resemblance to the notorious debutante, Diana Mitford. She is playing an accordion while a wolf in a tux accompanies her on a trumpet—is this lupine fiend a veiled reference to Diana's husband, Oswald Mosley, head of the British Union of Fascists, with whom Mitford spent the World War II years in a British prison, marked as a Nazi collaborator?

 

If the pale riders at BG wallow in a laudanum stupor, marijuana is the clear drug of choice over at Barneys. "Have a Peace and Love Hippie Holiday!" giggle the windows, which feature a cacophony of '60s images—peace symbols (it's the 50th anniversary of that icon, a birthday that Henri Bendel also saw fit to mention a few weeks ago); 40-year-old newspapers with headlines like "Games Are Rocked by Black Power"; and quotes by everyone from Tom Brokaw ("A great gaping chasm opened across the political and cultural landscape of America") to the pithier Janis Joplin ("I'm one of the regular weird people"). Barney's indulges in its own brand of surrealism, depicting the numerals "1968" through massive columns made up of, variously, hanging plants with heads, denim covered with sloganed buttons, tie-dye, and a welter of afros with pick combs.

 

Good old-fashioned booze underlies the festivities at Bloomingdale's, where the nostalgia-laden windows might have been curated by the invisible hand of Douglas Sirk. Instead of the '60s, Bloomies is entranced by the cocktail-fueled interregnum between the end of World War II and the gaping chasm Brokaw recalls over at Barneys. Tony Bennett supplies the soundtrack (and, bingo—his new CD, Tony Bennett: A Swingin' Christmas, is being heavily promoted here), and the windows feature figures that appear to have been purloined from midcentury magazine photos: A GI returns home to a pair of waiting females slaving away in a period kitchen to the strains of "I'll Be Home for Christmas"; chic women in swing coats and men in tweed chesterfields bustle outside a scale model of Bloomingdale's (bet I'd like the vintage stuff they've got in their miniature shopping bags a lot more than most of the merchandise Bloomingdale's offers these days).

 

If that Orthodox Jewish family so enjoying itself at Saks ambles down to Lord & Taylor, they're in for a rude shock: Here, the theme isn't snow or surrealism, but unapologetically Christian with a capital C. Each window has a title—"My Favorite Christmas Traditions," "My Favorite Christmas Songs," ". . . Cards," ". . . Treats," et al. The usual Victorian dolls (I love them, even if L&T does trot the same ones out every year) animate the vitrines, including a family dressed in vintage finery standing outside a replica of the store, which opened in 1914. (They apparently emerged unscathed from the recession of 1908, one of a number of economic cataclysms that have rocked our country in the past, if that makes you feel any better.)

 

The secular returns with a literal frenzy at Macy's, where a sign reads "Great Gifts Under $100." (I'm afraid that won't help a bit. How about under $10?) Yes, the moth-eaten Miracle on 34th Street windows, that paean to snail mail rolled out every year facing 34th Street, is still here, but so are the mechanical extravaganzas along Broadway. Garishly cheerful as ever, the theme for 2008 is the fantastical underpinnings of some of the season's predictable traditions—lights, tinsel, etc. "Joy and Hope Are Materials That Make Them Ethereal," the wall text reads in part, explaining the Rube Goldberg–like machines operated by friendly monsters. Gremlins emerge from a vat labeled "Puffball Juice"; what looks like a giant lavender cotton-candy machine is busy creating snow. (There's no sign of Mike.) One window, dressed in green, thankfully does not offer the millionth boring lecture on the environment, but instead extols something called "warm and fuzzy Blubble." (On closer examination, Blubble turns out to be no more compelling than recycling.) The last installment reverts to type, featuring that old geezer with the white beard in the red suit and his docile wife, trimming a tree next to a "Believe Meter." This contraption is supposed to gauge your faith in Santa, glitter, Blubble, renegade snow flakes, the redemptive power of Tony Bennett, etc., but it could also take the measure of your level of optimism in this strange and harrowing holiday season.

 

Gotta love fair and balanced reviews of the holiday windows....hehehe

Great idea for a thread and a great place to be during the holidays.

Looks like a weak shopping scene if you ask me. ;)

 

 

Very nice! Thanks for posting!

I don't care what MTS thinks, I like the bow on Cartier and it totally gets the win for best display in my book.  (Sorry Macy's) 

 

Also, I didn't see the Army Recruitment building in Times Square.  Did they tear it down after the bombing?  I love(d) that little American flag.

Agreed on the LV store.  I was all, WTF??? 

 

Anyways, I'm excited because I'll be in New York visiting a friend at Columbia either on the 28th or 29th.  When do the stores start taking stuff down for the season?  I vaguely recall them being up after Christmas the last time I was in New York but I'm not 100% sure.  Anyone know?

Yea, someone get pics of Barney's.  I wanna see the window that Dorleen let Jack decorate...think Will and Grace.  It's on the side of the building that "smells like urine and pretzels."

Yea, someone get pics of Barney's.  I wanna see the window that Dorleen let Jack decorate...think Will and Grace.  It's on the side of the building that "smells like urine and pretzels."

 

That was a set on the CBS Studio lot.  :wink:

I would assume so....was just sayin it cuz I like the quote.

Agreed on the LV store. I was all, WTF???

 

Anyways, I'm excited because I'll be in New York visiting a friend at Columbia either on the 28th or 29th. When do the stores start taking stuff down for the season? I vaguely recall them being up after Christmas the last time I was in New York but I'm not 100% sure. Anyone know?

 

i'm not 100% sure either, but definately after the new year so you will be fine if you want to see the rock center tree and the store windows and all. if you are shopping you should be able to catch some after christmas sales, too. good time to be in town!

 

^Thanks a million!  :-D

thanks, love NY at Christmas